Area Manager

Job description / Role

About the company

Azadea Group is a premier lifestyle retail company that owns and operates more than 40 leading international franchise concepts in fashion and accessories, food and beverage, home furnishings, sporting goods, multimedia, and beauty and cosmetics across the Middle East and Africa, spread across 13 countries, overseeing more than 700 stores.

Job purpose

The Area Manager is responsible for overseeing the daily operations of stores, ensuring adherence to brand standards. He/she communicates branch targets, provides performance improvement guidance, and maintains standards in conduct, customer service, and business performance.

Responsibilities

• Communicate the brand's strategic plan and motivate teams to achieve local business goals.
• Create annual and long-term business plans, project KPIs, formulate business cases, and estimate resource requirements. Analyze daily, weekly, and monthly shop KPIs, along with financial and commercial reports. Establish and suggest personal performance objectives, leveraging organizational systems for performance enhancement.
• Utilize an organizational development framework to identify the unique growth requirements of the team.
• Establish and uphold customer service standards while overseeing a large customer service team.
• Implement brand retail standards and trade marketing activities to maintain an optimal store image and ensure health and safety. Oversee periodic and qualitative stock liquidation processes while also managing expenses to maximize sales and profit.
• Conduct market studies and deliver crucial market insights and trend updates to the brand managers and merchandise team for monthly replenishment and seasonal collections. Ensure qualitative analysis of product and category performance.
• Manage and report on team performance, establishing appropriate performance objectives for direct reports and recognizing their achievements. Take necessary corrective action when needed to ensure both team and personal objectives are met.

Qualifications

Language & technical skills

• Fluency in English.
• Fluency in Arabic is a plus.
• Proficiency in MS Office.

Education

Bachelor's degree in Business Management or a related field.

Experience

General experience

• Six to eight years of experience in a similar role.
• Experience in cosmetics is a plus.

Managerial experience

• Three years of experience in a managerial role.

Behavioral competencies

• Business insight: Applies knowledge of business and the marketplace to advance the organization's goals. Shows considerable business insight, beyond the fundamentals. Asks probing questions and draws on a variety of sources to gain insight and explore business drivers or industry trends.
• Customer focus: Builds strong customer relationships and delivers customer-centric solutions. Keeps in contact with customers to ensure problems are resolved or to improve customer service. Studies customer feedback and emerging customer needs and uses these to determine some creative new ideas.
• Plans and aligns: Plans and prioritizes work to meet commitments aligned with organizational goals. Strengthens alignment and coordination between own work and others', providing well-sequenced activities and exact time frames. Foresees and resolves many potential bottlenecks and delays.
• Drives results: Consistently achieves results, even under tough circumstances. Holds self to high standards of performance; sets challenging goals; wants to achieve meaningful results; pursues initiatives/efforts to successful completion and closure. Focuses on key goals, even during setbacks and obstacles.
• Communicates effectively: Develops and delivers multi-mode communications that convey a clear understanding of the unique needs of different audiences. Disseminates knowledge, insights, and updates in a polished, precise, and compelling manner. Demonstrates a deep interest in others' comments. Creates rich documents and reports.
• Builds effective teams: Builds strong-identity teams that apply their diverse skills and perspectives to achieve common goals. Consistently emphasizes and advocates for the team's common goals and priorities. Volunteers promptly to help others and goes the extra mile to ensure the team's success. Recognizes everyone's contributions to the team.
• Manages ambiguity: Operates effectively, even when things are not certain or the way forward is not clear. Asks questions to anticipate new priorities and adjusts easily. Finds new ways to make progress. Welcomes change and helps others deal with its uncertainty.

Azadea Group is an equal employment employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, age, or any other characteristic protected by relevant local laws.

About the Company

Azadea Group is a premier fashion and lifestyle retail company that owns and operates more than 50 leading international franchise concepts across the Middle East, North Africa, Asia and Europe. Since its inception in 1978, the Group has grown a substantial chain of stores representing leading international brand names in fashion and accessories, food and beverage, home furnishing, sporting goods and multimedia.With over 11,000 employees, the company boasts a solid infrastructure overseeing more than 600 stores spread across 15 countries including Algeria, Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Ghana, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar and United Arab Emirates.